Conservative Happenings

Monday, October 28, 2013

60 MINUTES: YES, AMERICA, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION LIED TO YOU ABOUT BENGHAZI

60 Minutes” ran a report on the Benghazi scandal Sunday night that confirmed its status as an enduring scandal with many questions still remaining to be answered. Good thing the media was willing to cover for Barack Obama until he got re-elected, because this is some really damning stuff.

For mainstream media news consumers, a lot of this will come as a total shock. (CBS News, it should be noted, has been far more aggressive in pursuing the Benghazi story than its competitors; they say Sunday night’s report was a year in the making.) Yes, America, you were lied to, early and often, by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and their crew. They knew damn well it was a terrorist attack from the beginning. They knew it was never a protest over a provocative YouTube video. They looked right into the faces of the families who lost sons, brothers, and husbands in Benghazi and lied to them.

The important point to take away from this exhaustive report is that the Administration knew it was a terrorist attack before it happened. Security officials in Libya knew al-Qaeda was going to launch an attack… because they said so. They boasted online of plans to attack the Red Cross, the British, and the Americans. ”They made good on two out of the three promises,” said Lt. Colonel Andy Wood, who was based in Tripoli and met routinely with Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and was at his post when terrorist forces tried to assassinate the British ambassador. ”It was a matter of time until they captured the third one.”

Via: Human Events

Conservatives Need More Carrot, Not Just More Stick

Conservatives are frustrated: why doesn’t the Republican Party deliver better results for us? Part of the answer, of course, is that the Republican Party only controls so much of the government, but there remains a lot of resistance in GOP leadership to fighting for conservative priorities. Why?

Conservatives have tended to see this as a problem to be solved my making threats: We’ll primary you! We’ll stay home! Not One Cent! We’ll go third party! In terms of asserting the legitimate supremacy of the voters over their elected representatives, these are healthy impulses. But they can never be a complete solution, because all these ideas are rule by the stick, by fear. And anyone who knows anything about managing or motivating people knows that fear alone has limits.

I submit that, if we want small-government conservatives and social conservatives to have real influence in the Republican Party, we need to go beyond the stick and offer the carrot; go beyond punishment and offer rewards. We need to prove to the leadership of the party that if they do what we want them to do, they will be richly rewarded with the things they value – advancement, re-election, fundraising, a growing caucus. Until we can offer those things, we will always be frustrated by the limits of our influence.

Via: Red State

Examiner Editorial: Politically connected banks got bigger bailouts

It should come as no surprise that politically connected banks received larger bailout loans from the federal government during the 2007 financial crisis than banks that spent less on lobbying and campaign contributions. That's the conclusion of a new analysis by Prof. Benjamin Blau of Utah State University. His findings were based on data from the Federal Reserve and published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Blau noted it was “unlikely" that the Fed intended "to provide political favors to banks with the most political connections.” But whatever the motive, the pattern was stark. Banks that received bailout loans spent 72 times more on lobbying in the decade before the meltdown than banks that got no loans. Blau also found that 15 percent of the banks that received loans employed politically connected individuals. Only 1.5 percent of banks with politically connected employees got no loans.

There are three potential reasons for the skew, as Blau indicates:

1. The Fed may simply have had more information on the politically active banks, which would have made it easier to approve the loans.

2. The politically active banks were probably more likely to seek Fed loans.

3. Because of their political sophistication, these banks may have taken greater risks believing they would be rescued by the Fed if anything went wrong.

Following the 2007 crisis, Congress passed Dodd-Frank, a massive tome of a bill that Americans were told would prevent a repeat of the financial meltdown. In fact, Dodd-Frank all but guarantees that big banks stay big and small banks struggle to compete. “Dodd-Frank has not done enough to coral ‘too big to fail’ banks and, on balance, the act has made things worse, not better,” said Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Via: Washington Examiner

READ THE CHILLING NOTE SENT TO GOV. SCOTT WALKER’S WIFE

It’s no secret that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is intensely disliked by organized labor and Democrats.

Chilling note sent to Scott Walkers wife

Image source: Amazon

Indeed, the Republican governor’s opponents have made their feelings toward him very clear since he was first elected — especially during the state capital protests in 2011 and the defeated effort to have him recalled.

But if you thought the rhetoric aimed at Walker during the 2011 protests was bad, just wait until you hear his version of events included in his upcoming book, “Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge” — particularly the chilling note that was sent to his wife.

State Patrol Capt. Dave Erwin, a former United States Marine, brought the governor a particularly eerie piece of hate mail during the protests that contained very specific information about his wife and children.

“[A]s I prepared to go out to the conference room for my daily press briefing, Dave came into my office and shut the door,” Walker recalls, according to a book excerpt published online.

“Sir, I don’t show you most of these, but I thought you ought to see this one,” the officer said.

The letter was addressed to Walker’s wife, Tonette. It read:

Has Wisconsin ever had a governor assassinated? Scotts heading that way. Or maybe one of your sons getting killed would hurt him more. I want him to feel the pain. I already follow them when they went to school in Wauwatosa, so it won’t be too hard to find them in Mad. Town. Big change from that house by [BLANK] Ave. to what you got now. Just let him know that it’s not right to [EXPLETIVE] over all those people. Or maybe I could find one of the Tarantinos [Tonette’s parents] back here.

Via: The Blaze
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Four Teens Arrested In Murder of Beloved World War II Veteran

Four Mississippi teenagers have been charged with murder in the killing of a beloved World War II veteran who gained local fame for his home-cooked hot tamales.

The long and lustrous life of Lawrence “Shine” Thornton, 87, was celebrated last week during a ceremony at St. Joseph Catholic Church. Following the ceremony, Thornton was buried with military honors at Greenlawn Memorial Gardens.

Thornton died Oct. 20, succumbing to the injuries he sustained after four teenagers "pushed him down and stole his wallet," during an apparent mugging that occurred in the late-afternoon two days earlier in the driveway of his long-time Greenville home.

Meanwhile, Greenville Assistant Police Chief Andrew Kaho told the Delta Democrat Times that Terrance Morgan, 19; Edward Johnson, 19; Leslie Litt, 18; and Geblonski Murray, 18; were all arrested Monday, and charged with capital murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery.

And although little is known about the specifics of the run-in that cost Thornton his life, much has reportedly been said about the apparently momentous loss to the delta community.

Via: Fox News

Cancellation of Afrobeat band Shokazoba at Hampshire College's Hampshire Halloween creates controversy

AMHERST - Shokazoba's cancellation from the Hampshire Halloween event Friday night at Hampshire College, after one band member said they were criticized of being "too white" to play Afrobeat music, is reverberating on social media.

Shokazoba keyboard player Jason Moses said on Saturday that the entire incident has upset the band, which he said was the target of an online campaign by approximately 30 people - a campaign that led to the band's ultimate cancellation from the annual event.

Moses said the firestorm started when someone posted an inflammatory comment online about Hampshire College hiring an all-white band to play Afrobeat music for the event. He said the band is not all white, and race should not be an issue anyway.

"It's not important to us. Music and art has the opportunity to transcend all that," Moses.

The decision to cancel the band was made by the Hype Committee, which puts on Hampshire Halloween.

The Hype Committee wrote on its Facebook page on Oct. 24: "Due to concerned students voicing their opinions about the band Shokazoba, we held community dialogue to hear what individuals had to say. As a result of the dialogue, and discomfort expressed by members of the community in person as well as by email, Facebook, and other means, we have removed Shokazoba from the lineup for Hampshire Halloween."

Elaine Thomas, Hampshire College spokeswoman, said in a statement that the student organizers of Hampshire Halloween contracted with a number of bands, and that some students "questioned the selection of one band, asking whether it was a predominantly white Afrobeat band, and expressing their concerns about cultural appropriation and the need to respect marginalized cultures."

Via: Mass Live

NY ObamaCare — Medicaid on steroids

When ObamaCare was being sold to the American people, one of the claims was that it would get uninsured Americans private insurance. Instead, it seems to be going in the opposite direction.

This week, The Post’s S.A. Miller and Carl Campanile reported that only a third of the 37,000 New Yorkers who enrolled in health care through the state’s new exchange signed up for private insurance. Nearly two-thirds opted for Medicaid, a state program partly funded by the federal government.

That’s just what’s got many insurers worried. Because to pay for ObamaCare’s benefits, they need a great many more healthy people to sign up.

It’s not just New York, either. We’re seeing the same trend in other states with their own health-care exchanges. Indeed, the number of new Medicaid enrollees in states like Kentucky, Washington and Oregon tops 80 percent. And why not? In contrast to the private plans, Medicaid is free.

These new waves of enrollment come after a years-long bipartisan effort to make it even easier to join Medicaid. That’s a big deal for New York, because the Empire State already spends more than any other state on Medicaid, with costs growing at an unsustainable 13 percent per year. Other states are going to find themselves with similar problems if the trend on the state exchanges continues.

And unless the trend reverses, it’s going ing to be a bigger headache for ObamaCare.

Via NYP

Obamacare’s Magical Thinkers - Not even the coolest president ever can conjure up a national medical regime for 300 million people.

If you’re looking for an epitaph for the republic (and these days who isn’t?) try this — from August 2010 and TechCrunch’s delirious preview of Healthcare.gov:

“We were working in a very very nimble hyper-consumer-focused way,” explained Todd Park, the chief technology officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “all fused in this kind of maelstrom of pizza, Mountain Dew, and all-nighters . . . and, you know, idealism. That kind of led to the magic that was produced.”

Wow. Think of the magic that Madison, Hamilton, and the rest of those schlubs could have produced if they’d only had pizza and Mountain Dew and been willing to pull a few all-nighters at Philadelphia in 1787. Somewhere between the idealism and the curling slice of last night’s pepperoni, Macon Phillips, the administration’s director of new media, happened to come across a tweet by Edward Mullen of Jersey City in which he twitpiced his design for what a health-insurance exchange could look like. So Phillips printed it out to show his fellow administration officials: “Look, this is the sort of creativity that is out there,” he said. “One thing led to another and he left Jersey City to come to D.C. and helped push us through an information architectural process.”

Via: NRO

GOP SELLING HEALTHCARE.GOV '404: ERROR' STICKERS

Obamacare website failures have defined the rollout of the President's healthcare overhaul and now the Republican National Senatorial Committee is out with a new campaign taking the mockery to the next level.

From the NRSC website:

Get Your 404 Error Bumper Sticker Today!

Remind Democrats that Obamacare was a mistake with our 404 error bumper sticker – the same error message Americans are seeing each day when trying to logon to Healthcare.gov.

Your contribution fuels our fight to build a Republican majority in the Senate in 2014, which is absolutely critical if we want to repeal and replace Obamacare.

A five dollar donation will get you a healthcare.gov "Error 404" bumper sticker with the number zero represented by a symbol similar to the logo used in Barack Obama's campaigns.

The Obamacare website went offline for a period of time over the weekend and a redesigned version of the site removed the photo of the young woman who had quite literally become the face of the website.

We also learned over the weekend that the Spanish language version of the Obamacare website has been delayed indefinitely and Rep. Mike Rogers said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the website may need to be rebuilt.

Via: Breitbart

CBS News Features Distraught Woman Paying 10 Times More for Insurance Due to Obamacare

A visibly distraught woman who recently lost her health insurance plan because of the new requirements within the Affordable Care Act recently expressed her frustrations to CBS News. In a report about the number of people losing their health plans, in spite of assurances by the president, one Florida woman choked up slightly while revealing that she will have to pay more than $500 monthly for the coverage she previously paid just $50 for.

CBS News’ Jan Crawford reported on Monday that the ACA’s broken federal website is unlikely to be fully functional until after weeks of repair work. In the interim, she reported, millions of Americans are losing their health insurance plans and are being told that they will have to pay far more for their current level of coverage.

“For many, their introduction to the Affordable Care Act has been negative,” Crawford reported.

She also noted that the fact that so many are losing their health care plans is “directly at odds with repeated assurances by the president.”

Many, including Dianne Barrette, a 56-year-old Florida resident, were recently informed that their current health care plans were not comprehensive enough to meet coverage requirements set by the ACA. Barrette was recently informed that her new plan will cost 10 times what she presently pays per month.

“What I have right now is what I’m happy with,” Barrette said. “I just want to know why I can’t keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?”

Via: Mediaite.com

Chris Wallace and Brit Hume Skewer Juan Williams As He Defends Millions of Obamacare-Cancelled Individual Health Plans

On Tuesday's Fox News Special report, contributor Juan Williams lamely tried to excuse away the mind-boggling incompetence of the HealthCare.gov rollout by claiming that "massive opposition (to Obamacare) from the Republicans" caused fearful system architects to "roll it out and see how it works for now."

Juan's haughty huffiness was so absurd that the Fox News panel was caught slack-jawed and barely challenged him. That's not what happened Sunday morning on Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday broadcast when Williams tried to claim that millions of people losing their individual health care coverage are going to be better off with Obamacare policies (video and transscript follow the jump; bolds are mine; HT to Mediaite via Twitchy):

Relevant portion of transcript (with minor corrections):

CHRIS WALLACE: And let's put up again those statistics. Just in case you didn't see them, because they are quite remarkable about the people who are losing health insurance, not gaining it. Florida Blue terminating 300,000 policies because they don't meet the new ObamaCare standards. Kaiser Permanente in California, 160,000 cancelling. These are people who had health insurance in the individual market, who were happy with it, and they're being kicked off, because the new -- under the new ObamaCare mandates, that doesn't meet it. And to pick up on what George (Will) said, the House Speaker Boehner said, more people could actually lose health insurance in the month of October than sign up for it.

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I get this sense, that people -- on the Republican side are enjoying this moment. But this is empty rhetoric. When you speak to the insurance executives in Florida, in California, they say they're canceling those policies, Chris, because ObamaCare has requirements -- Ten categories or mandates for levels of coverage. The current policies don't meet them, so they have to cancel them, but they're extending, they're extending offers to the very people who are losing them for better packages at lower costs with more benefits.

WALLACE: No, no, that's not true. It is not.

Via: Newsbusters

Dean: Obamacare Is Going To Be Reason Dems "Pick Up Seats In The House"

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: If your insurance plan conforms with the requirements of Obamacare you don't have to go to the exchanges

BILL KRISTOL: Which very, very few, almost no, about 15% of individually purchased self-insurance plans do. And why is that? It was a free market. If people wanted to buy all those benefits they could have.

HOWARD DEAN: No, no, no. We kicked all those people out of our state when we did this, and it was a good thing we did because they were taking 50% of every premium dollar and keeping it for themselves.

What this is doing is driving the fly-by-night insurance companies out of the market or forcing the good ones who have bad policies--

KRISTOL: Wait, wait, wait, so when Blue Shield drops, when Blue Shield and these huge companies drop 300,000 people in Florida, those are fly-by-night insurance companies?

DEAN: First of all, Blue Shield is for profit so it's Anthem I'm sure in Florida especially. Second of all, yeah, even good companies have crappy policies with enormous deductibles.

KRISTOL: But the government, but the government, that's going to be great.

DEAN: The government has a right to make sure that when you buy something it is what it's supposed to be.

KRISTOL: And to force you into the exchange? That's what they're doing.

DEAN: I think that's okay because I think in the long run, what's been happening in the past is those policies that get sold don't cover what you think they cover. And furthermore, and this used to happen when I was practicing, an insurance company would pull your insurance if you got sick. That is not allowed anymore under Obamacare.

I think Obamacare is in fact going to be the reason that we are going to pick up seats in the House and we are not going to lose the Senate.

Via: Real Clear Politics

Monday, October 28, 2013

Obamacare website failures have defined the rollout of the President's healthcare overhaul and now the Republican National Senatorial Committee is out with a new campaign taking the mockery to the next level.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: If your insurance plan conforms with the requirements of Obamacare you don't have to go to the exchanges

BILL KRISTOL: Which very, very few, almost no, about 15% of individually purchased self-insurance plans do. And why is that? It was a free market. If people wanted to buy all those benefits they could have.

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